Looks like Shaxson is a guy who writes books arguing for more financial regulation, talking to a media organisation. So that's two entities who want the story to be big.
The worst offenders like Poroshenko are already known by their people as being corrupt. It is unlikely these cases will significantly change anything for them. Perhaps there will be more cases like Iceland, although it's a little hard to know how much benefit those politicians really got from their companies.
I restate my case: the most impressive cases of corruption are in places where nothing will happen, and the cases in the west will turn out, on deeper investigation, to reveal not much of legal interest ... gaming of vague rules, at best.
I think you're misunderstanding why so many people are shocked/upset at this. I think Glenn Greenwald puts it well in his article [1]: "The deeper scandal is what's legal, not what's not."
It's the same reason why people are so angry about the NSA scandal. You can have rubber stamp courts declaring everything you do legal all day; the point is that most people don't think what's happening is ethical.
And I think you're misunderstanding my posts. Where did I argue people would not be shocked or upset?
I do not think this is comparable to the Snowden leaks. Those revealed secret courts, secret interpretations of laws and showed that spy agencies are effectively above the law. Many people had no idea what those agencies had become capable of or the lengths they were going to.
But the fact that tax laws allow for offshore companies is not news. The fact that there are lots of them is not news either, these things exist in public registers. The story here is not that these things exist or that they work - which everyone knew already - it's who is using them.
The worst offenders like Poroshenko are already known by their people as being corrupt. It is unlikely these cases will significantly change anything for them. Perhaps there will be more cases like Iceland, although it's a little hard to know how much benefit those politicians really got from their companies.
I restate my case: the most impressive cases of corruption are in places where nothing will happen, and the cases in the west will turn out, on deeper investigation, to reveal not much of legal interest ... gaming of vague rules, at best.